As Rabbi Shudnow explains, the word “goy,” classically, simply means “nation,” and often indicates, without judgment, a nation “other” than Israel. But I’m not sure your question is so much about the use or meaning of the word “goy” as it is about the relationship, according to Jewish tradition, between Jews and non-Jews.

“How can this [by which I’m guessing you mean the idea of the non-Jew as the “other”] coexist with the modern concept of plurality,” you ask, “and how can these texts be relevant today if they seem so offensive to the modern ear?”

I wish I knew which texts you’ve read.  In the absence of this information, I’ll try to address your question generally.

Leviticus 18:3 reads, “You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you; nor shall you follow their laws.”  From here have developed many Jewish laws that have served and in some cases still serve to separate Jews from others in marriage, at meal times, in matters of business and at leisure and, most especially, as regards religious practice.

“This does not mean, of course, that we are forbidden to learn anything from our neighbors,” explains Rabbi Mark Washofsky, reflecting on the Leviticus verse.[1] At times throughout Jewish history the prohibitions against mixing with or adopting the customs of our neighbors have been strict, indicating a concern for the integrity and survival of Jewish tradition and community.  At other times, the response was more open, suggesting a degree of security and “optimism that the Jewish community could maintain its distinctiveness even when it opened itself to contact with Gentile culture. ...The exact placement of boundaries, in other words, has always been a matter of dispute.”[2]

Not open for dispute is the idea that Judaism as a distinctive religious and cultural tradition is worth preserving (as are all great world religions).  The modern concept of plurality that you cite does not require that everyone be the same.  Rather, plurality by definition embraces and values the co-existence of individuals and communities claiming many different particular identities.  Alongside the celebration of universal ideals that characterizes contemporary progressive Judaism we maintain an allegiance to the aspects of identity, ritual, theology, language, calendar, collective memory, and principle that set us apart from everyone else.

As modern philosophy has well established, we can hardly have a self without an “other,” and the term “other,” just as the word “goy,” can take on many meanings and implications depending upon the purpose and context of the speaker.  Some are negative, others are decidedly not.  Upon encountering Jewish texts that “seem so offensive to the modern ear,” we might do well to consider the particular historical and geo-political moment, so different from our own, that produced the text.  We might then look for the enduring truth that often lies at its heart.

Throughout Jewish history and certainly since the birth of Reform Judaism, our tradition has been animated by, among other things, a productive tension between universalism and particularism.  That is, we find ourselves caught on a continuum between our concern for and relationship with all of God’s children, and our concern for and relationship with Torah, Israel, and our particular covenant with God.  It is this tension that makes Judaism a great and enduring tradition, and which motivates us to fulfill our potential as or la-goyim, “a light to the nations,” the highest embodiment of all our ideals.